Alice Gross murder suspect in new CCTV released by police who believe he killed her

Schoolgirl Alice Gross was killed within 80 minutes of meeting Latvian builder Arnis Zalkans on a canal towpath and her body hidden in a river so she would not be found, police said today.

Detectives announced that the 41-year-old builder — who was a convicted killer — would have been charged with the murder of the 14-year-old if he was alive.

They say evidence shows the builder attacked Alice as she walked along the Grand Union Canal near her Hanwell home on August 28 last year. He hanged himself a week later.

A post-mortem examination found the schoolgirl died from compression of the chest caused by a heavier body. Detectives say they believe the motive for the attack was sexual, though they had no evidence she had been sexually assaulted.

Murdered: the body of schoolgirl Alice Gross was found concealed in the Grand Union canal

Scotland Yard today issued new images showing Zalkans buying cans of beer in a Lidl corner store in West Ealing just hours after he had killed Alice. Other images also show the spot where she died and a picture of Zalkans buying food on the day he is believed to have hanged himself.

Police announced that a file had been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, which had ruled there would be sufficient evidence to charge Zalkans for murder, if he were alive.

Alice cracked phone, which police found under Zalkans' patio

Alice’s disappearance after she left home to meet friends on August 28 sparked the biggest Met police search since the 7/7 bombings. Her body was found nearly a month later in the River Brent, near the canal where she was last spotted on CCTV.

Police said Zalkans emerged as a prime suspect after Interpol revealed he had been convicted for the murder of his wife Rudite in Latvia in 1998.

An image of the spot where Alice's body was found, released today by police

He arrived in the UK in 2007 after seven years in jail but authorities had no record of his conviction. In 2009 he was arrested for the indecent assault of a 14-year-old in Boston Manor but the victim did not wish to give evidence and no charges were brought against him.

Detectives said today that if they had known about Zalkans’s conviction for murder it might have made him a suspect earlier but that they did not believe it would have saved Alice’s life.

A huge police search operation was mounted in an effort to trace her

However, in a statement Alice’s parents, Rosalind Hodgkiss and Jose Gross, said there still “serious unanswered questions” about what the authorities knew or should have known about Zalkans when he arrived in the UK.

Police said Alice’s body was found naked apart from one sock, wrapped in black bin liners and weighted down with tree trunks, bricks and a bicycle tyre.

Searches later found part of Alice’s iPhone case buried in the patio of Zalkans’s home in Ealing. The bin bags used to conceal her body were traced to his workplace, and traces of his DNA were found on her skin, shoe and a cigarette butt found near her body.

A bicycle wheel with bricks tied to it which Zalkans used to weigh the body down

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Chalmers, who led the murder inquiry, said CCTV from the towpath on the day of Alice’s disappearance showed 80 minutes when Zalkans was not seen and he believed she was killed then.

Arnis Zalkans was found hanged a week after the schoolgirl's body was found

The footage shows the Latvian emerge from the canal with his trousers rolled up, as if he had been in the water. Mr Chalmers said: “I am satisfied that the evidence points to Zalkans as being responsible for the abduction and murder of Alice. I hope the CPS decision that, if he was alive, Zalkans would be charged with murder will in some way help her family and the community.”

Police revealed that Zalkalns had returned three times to the area where Alice was last seen and had searched her name online as reports of her disappearance emerged.